As close to a lie as it is possible to get. "more energy out than they put in" is what the press want you to believe but the truth is a LOT more complicated and a LOT less exciting.KungFooBob wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 4:06 pm Exciting times!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63950962
Maybe Nuclear Fusion isn't always 30 years away.
1.8 MJ of laser power created the conditions for a fusion reaction to initiate which output 2.5 MJ. Yeah, ok so that's a net positive output of 0.7 MJ. Free energy right?
Wrong. To get 1.8 MJ out of those lasers they needed to pump 500 MJ into them.
It's all about Q factor but you can go look it up for the full detail, I won't pretend to understand it. I am just reacting to all the excitement which would have you believe they have cracked that nut and we can all bathe in free energy.
The Q factor is a very small fraction of the total energy required to get fusion to work at all. The exciting part is really only that they're doing it with fricking lasers. You can't feed the output up the input yet for a self sustaining long term power station 1. because the reaction is sustained only for mere seconds and 2. because these numbers are still way off what is needed to overcome inefficiencies in generating USEABLE electrical energy from the power output of the fusion reaction. For that you need a Q more like 5 not merely "above one".
In my humble opinion ( ) you need gravity to make fusion work and LOTS of it. We don't even know what gravity is yet, nor how to control it. If that is at all possible (unlikely imho) then fusion might one day become a possibility. Without gravity assist, I sincerely doubt we'll ever see a viable fusion power station.
The hydrogen bomb is a n example of how we can easily create fusion "power". It uses a fission bomb to create the conditions for fusion etc. That is not dissimilar to what these chaps are doing albeit in a more controlled manner with lasers. Fusion has been around since the late 50's (with bombs and TOKAMAK) so it's nothing new. Neither is this laser guff really...
Fusion power is only 20 years away. Always has been, always will be.